The largest, most comprehensive anthology of its kind, this volume brings together significant, representative stories from every decade of the 20th century. It includes the prose of officially recognized writers and dissidents, both well-known and neglected or forgotten, plus new authors from the end of the 20th century. The selections reflect the various literary trends and approaches to depicting reality in the 20th century: traditional realism, modernism, socialist realism, and post-modernism. Taken as a whole, the stories capture every major aspect of Russian life, history and culture in the 20th century. The rich array of themes and styles will be of tremendous interest to students and readers who want to learn about Russia through the engaging genre of the short story.

Contents:

Once Upon a Time by Leonid Andreyev

The Invoker of the Beast by Fyodor Sologub

Gambrinus by Aleksandr Kuprin

The Little Devil by Aleksei Remizov

Thus Life Passes by Elena Guro

Four People by

Scenes from the Life of the Worker Pantelei Grymzin by Arkady Averchenko

Black Iris by Nadezhda Teffi

The Red Crown by Mikhail Bulgakov

Black Magic by Mikhail Zoshchenko

The Female Fishby Mikhail Zoshchenko

Gedali by Isaac Babel

The Rabbiby Isaac Babel

The Rabbi's Sonby Isaac Babel

Family Man by Mikhail Sholokhov

Outgoing Paper No 27 by Lev Lunts

The Gardener of the Emir of Bukhara by Vsevolod Ivanov

The Viper by Aleksei Tolstoy

The Flood by Evgeny Zamyatin

Doubting Makar by Andrei Platonov

Blue Notebook Number 10 by Daniil Kharms

Old Women Tumbling Outby Daniil Kharms

Kushakov the Carpenterby Daniil Kharms

A Dreamby Daniil Kharms

The Start of a Very Nice Summer Dayby Daniil Kharms

The Lynching by Daniil Kharms

Lake, Cloud, Tower by Vladimir Nabokov

The Smoky Glass Goblet by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

Tanya by Ivan Bunin

The Tenants by Andrei Sinyavsky

Eulogy by Varlam Shalamov

The House with a Turret by Fridrikh Gorenshtein

"Victory" by Vasily Aksyonov

Hands by Yuli Daniel

A German in Felt Boots by Konstantin Vorobyov

My Uncle of the Highest Principles by Fazil Iskander

Chudik by Vasily Shukshin

I Believe!by Vasily Shukshin

Bread for a Dog by Vladimir Tendryakov

You Cried Bitterly in Your Sleep by Yury Kazakov

Little Arm, Leg, Cucumber by Yury Dombrovsky

My Older Cousin by Sergei Dovlatov

Girl of My Dreams by Bulat Okudzhava

The Fakir by Tatiana Tolstaya

Galoshes by Viktor Erofeyev

Surrealism in a Proletarian District by Vladimir Makanin

Passing Through by Vladimir Sorokin

The Young by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Butterfly. 1987 by Leonid Yuzefovich

The Last War Story by Oleg Ermakov

A Short History of Paint-ball in Moscow by Viktor Pelevin

The Queen of Spades by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

More and More Angels by Yury Buida

The Samurai's Dream by Yury Buida

Currency by Yury Mamleyev

Snow Falls Ever So Quietly by Irina Polyanskaya

Teacher without Pupils, or from under the Rubble by Lev Rubinshtein

Into the Mausoleum of Thine by Lev Rubinshtein

The Lord of the Steppes by Vladimir Tuchkov

Never by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya

Experience in Demonstrating Mourning by Marina Vishnevetskaya

The Dump by Andrei Levkin

Original title: Fifty Writers: An Anthology of 20th Century Russian Short StoriesOriginal languages:
Russian